The NHS paid out more than £1bn in damages for medical negligence last year – a record high, fuelled by maternity blunders, official figures show.
Patients groups said the figures showed the need to improve safety in hospitals, with particular concerns about the rising costs caused by catastrophic errors in childbirth.
Would be very interesting to find out how much of this is about the insistence upon “natural” childbirth, wouldn’t it?
It would also be interesting to find out how much is due to the chronic shortage of midwives in the NHS leading to insufficient attendance during labour and at birthing. The article also touches on the lack of training in the use of heart monitors given to midwives, a problem easily solved at hospital level.
Hat-tip to Anna Raccoon?
https://annaraccoon.blog/2017/07/13/my-campaign-is-bearing-fruit/
Midwifery seems to have been politicised in the last few decades. Why is that? Feminism? The urge to power? Satan?
It would help if the midwives could organise themselves… From what I have seen they are hopeless.
The other problem is the paperwork, they spend more time filling out paperwork than anything else.
Well the UK can recruit lots of German midwives as they are struggling to renew their professional indemnity this year. Come and grab them while you can.
Oh, wait…
We have had reason to think little of
Piss on all keyboards.
We have had reason to find little merit in German child-rearing practises over the last 150 years.
If their midwives are of such a standard we would be far better off if they stay where they are and deliver the New Germans to their ascendancy.
Perhaps the standard has gone up over time, so that what would have been happenstance in 1950 is now regarded as negligence.
Surely a major reason is the sharp decline in discount rates for calculating lump sum compensation amounts?
@Mr Ecks,
Perhaps you shouldn’t try to comment before your morning cup of gin has steadied the hand.
The consequence of whole-life-cost accounting is that more NHS resources will be targeted at childbirth and early years, and fewer resources at end-of-life care. That may not be a bad thing, but it strikes me that it should be a political decision, not an accounting one.
Biggie–Lifelong teetotaller.
My Mother signed the teetotal pledge when she was a teenager and I still remember my Dad taking me to one of the last temperance bars in the early 1960’s. It was run by a grey-haired old bloke in a grey shop coat. I had a sarsaparilla as I recall.
Only one such bar remains in the UK now–in Rawtenstall so Wiki says.
Anna Racoon’s campaign is to scrap it and tell victims to go fuck themselves on the basis that she never sued when she was a victim of medical negligence. She says there is no need for compo because the NHS provides the subsequent care anyway. Presumably quality of life and denial of opportunity doesn’t get considered. Not a campaign based on morals I recognise, that’s for sure.
Have to say my experience with midwives is excellent – but then I tended to engage them in conversation around the ideas they were using and not just follow their advice blind (it helps my wife is a graduate of a field related to medicine, and I can be confused for a medic by the unwary). As with any medical profressional (or presumably amateur) it is better to have a discussion with them rather than just nod along.
Mind you, I did just agree when the doctor was brought in and told us my wife needed to move to surgery – that is kind of the time when stopping to have a long discussion of why leads to divorce I suspect…
Patients groups said the figures showed the need to improve safety in hospitals, which would put patient groups out of business. Wait . . . what?
Doesn’t matter how much improvement, the so-called patient groups won’t go away. Minutia will command attention.
Fecks: Oh my god! Like! Welcome to Facebook! That explains everything!
BiG,
“Well the UK can recruit lots of German midwives as they are struggling to renew their professional indemnity this year. Come and grab them while you can.
Oh, wait…”
All the serious driscussion by leavers proposed a points based system, which will allow us to recruit midwives, or other skills, should we need them.
@ Mr Ecks – Only one such bar remains in the UK now–in Rawtenstall so Wiki says- the owner of said bar was done for drink driving i believe
@mr ecks – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9713742/Owner-of-Britains-last-Temperance-Bar-admits-drink-driving.html
Well there you go–the quality of moral fibre is down 3000% since the 1930s.
Biggie–not on facebook.
Or the German version Faisal-book either.
“Lifelong teetotaller.” You poor bastard. Try a small glass of verdelho Madeira. If you like it take one a week until further notice.
Good on you, Mr Ecks. My father signed the pledge as a teenager and never touched a drop in his 84 years. Ditto his father. Unfortunately I’m not one for tradition.